The Long Awaited Fire Story

Hello. Well, here is the story I was supposed to write first. Oops, things got a little out of order. Anyway, here it is. Hope it's okay. It's still kind of draft-y.

In The Rubble

The first thing that burned was the porch. Clouds of black smoke overtook it, rubbing the wood raw until it collapsed. The second thing that burned was the kitchen, and then, according to the fire men, the power cords set on fire, like some living vengeful creature, taking with it wall-to-wall carpets, wood floors, and the bed frame. The television, bookshelves, and the dining room table. The fire burned the sheets on the bed and the throw rug in the bathroom. Maybe the fourth or fifteenth or fiftieth things to burn were the suitcases under the bed, which Tad had been packing for weeks, ready to make the quick escape he’d been planning.

Lenora and Jamie had been at home. She’d interrupted him from a weekend work meeting to call him from a payphone, and Tad answered sourly.
“Tad,” she began in a panic, before Tad could even say hello. “Did you hear on the radio? There’s a fire –”
Typical Lenora, interrupting him at work, talking too loud, paranoia. “Lenora, I know. They put it out yesterday –”
“No, they didn’t. We saw it, this big smoke cloud, and we had to leave the house. We packed some bags but we didn’t know what you’d want –”
“Lenora, what are you talking about? Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, what do you think, me and everyone else on our street just hallucinated a giant smoke cloud? Everyone evacuated. The firemen won’t let us back up there until who knows how long… nobody knows what’s going on. We drove down the hill, we’re in Berkeley. You’ve got to come meet us.”
“Are you – what? Are you and Jamie alright?” It might not be so bad, he rationalized. It would postpone his plans a week, maybe. Lenora would freak out over some burned shrubs, maybe, and Jamie might be a little scared, but she was a tough kid, nothing would be changed. Within a week he could be halfway across the country.

But when Tad returned to the meeting he found the conference room empty. “Tad,” his coworker Reese said from behind him. “Boss says we’re out for the day. Big fire in the Oakland Hills. Apparently there’s a chance it might jump the freeway, head over here. So we get our Saturday after all.”
“Oakland Hills?” Tad repeated. “I – I live in the Oakland Hills. That was my wife on the phone. She said they had to evacuate the house…”
“You live in the Oakland Hills? I thought that was Peter. Thought you lived over by the Claremont.”
“No,” Tad replied slowly, trying not to worry. For the first time he entertained the possibility that something far worse than burned shrubs awaited him. Maybe as he stood there calmly in his office building, everything from the tuxedo he’d gotten married in to his father’s Purple Heart in the attic was burning. Plans, certificates, insurance. “She says no one knows anything yet. They aren’t allowed to go back up.” Tad thought: what if I’m never able to enter my house again?

He left Reese without saying goodbye, and walked purposefully to his blue Mercedes he’d saved up to buy when his finance consulting job had become lucrative. Though Lenora had told him to meet at the corner of Shattuck and University, Tad found himself driving instinctively towards home, but every entrance up the hill was blocked. The smoke cloud ahead of him seemed to accumulate gradient and density as he approached. Maybe if he got out of the car, he could climb up the mountain, see if his carefully packed bag of travel toiletries under the bed had survived. He longed for the temporary simplicity of hotel room counters, to business trips away from the clutter. But without shaving tools and his toothbrush or even clean boxers, he could think of hardly anything relieving aside from being alone with his comforts.

Dutifully, Tad drove, and soon caught sight of his wife’s red Volvo, doors opened, her sandaled feet resting on the concrete. He hadn’t really noticed the heat until he saw her red sandals, and the pink of her legs in contrast with her shell-white shorts. He hadn’t really realized, until that moment, that they were stranded until further notice.
“Oh, Tad,” Lenora sat up, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m just…” She took off her sunglasses to reveal an even redder face, her eyes puffy at the corners. “I’m falling apart.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” he muttered. “It’ll just upset Jamie.” But Jamie, in the backseat, appeared quite calm, as if this was just another midday adventure.
“Daddy!” She exclaimed from her car seat. “Did you bring Ralfie Bear?” At six, Jamie was a small child, still too small to sit on the regular seat. “I left Ralfie Bear at home. Do you have him?”
Tad would remember years later that there was nothing quite like the watchful eye of a six year old to make you feel guilty. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t get Ralfie. I couldn’t. But I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know,” Jamie frowned. “I hope so.”
“What are we going to do?” Lenora asked, wiping sweat from her forehead agitatedly. “Where are we going to stay tonight? What if everything’s gone, forever?”
“We’ll stay in a hotel tonight,” he decided. “It’ll be like a little vacation. We’ll be back at home tomorrow.” He smiled at Jamie, though he felt the words twist inside of him, as he thought of the permanent vacation away from them, away from her, that he’d been planning.

They chose a clean, quiet Best Western in the flatlands, and within an hour were with room key, and, after explaining their situation to the receptionist, complimentary toothbrushes and shaving supplies. Lenora and Jamie had packed their own toothbrushes and change of clothes from the house, but hadn’t thought to pack some of Tad’s things. “I know how you hate it when I get into your stuff,” Lenora explained, but Tad was incensed. “Everyone’s always just in it for themselves,” he grumbled under his breath.

While Lenora and Jamie went to get pizza, Tad browsed through Longs to stock up on whatever he’d need until the morning. He walked aimlessly down aisle after aisle, not knowing what he needed and what he could live without. In his briefcase he only had financial reports and his pager. He found a pack of white Hanes t-shirts, and headed towards check-out. He thought to himself, I have dozens of t-shirts at home. I don’t need these, and without letting himself reconsider, put the t-shirts on a shelf and walked out of the store.

When they arrived back to the hotel, Lenora put slices of pizza on pieces of toilet paper and served it to Tad and Jamie on the bed. They flipped on the television, where the news blared, and pictures of flames dominated the news. “Firemen have reported that most of the houses in the Oakland Hills have burned. Residents will not be allowed to enter the burn site until the firemen are sure the fire is out.” Cut to a harried-looking resident. “We almost didn’t get out in time,” the person, a middle-aged woman with gray hair, said. “My mother is very old, and it’s hard to move her around, so we didn’t want to move unless we were sure…”
“Mommy,” Jamie whimpered. “Is our house gone forever?”
On the news, the newscaster was saying, “Some houses may not have been effected by the fire, officials say. But everywhere north of…” Jamie started to cry, and Lenora shut off the television.
“Let’s go to sleep,” she instructed.

After Jamie had fallen into a restless sleep, Tad and Lenora got ready for bed at the bathroom’s his-and-her sinks. In a bathrobe with no makeup and her hair pulled back, Lenora looked her least glamorous – that was something Tad had to get used to when they first got married. The first time he’d seen her, at a club, she’d been her most glamorous, in a short sequined dress, her hair tousled in dirty-blonde waves, the dark light of the room making her teeth sparkle. She’d been laughing, sitting with friends, but the club was so loud Tad felt like he was watching a movie on mute and that he’d never be able to speak to her through the television screen. Now Tad had to somehow equate the woman he’d first seen, with the woman rubbing anti-aging cream under her eyes, the skin of her thighs saggy after childbirth. Maybe he couldn’t do that.

She wouldn’t stop talking: “I just worry, you know, about Jamie. She could be really traumatized by this. I just don’t know how much we should tell her. I don’t want to lie to her, but I don’t want her to think that this kind of thing happens all the time and that she should always be worried something terrible is going to happen. And when she keeps asking about her toy bear? I mean, the chances that bear didn’t burn… next to nil. But seriously, Tad, what’s going to happen if we go up there and everything’s gone?”
“Don’t say that,” Tad whispered harshly. “Our house hasn’t burned down. It just hasn’t.”
“But Tad –” She turned to him, looking skeptical.
“No. Lenora.” He grabbed her wrists for emphasis. “It’s not true. Our house is fine. In fact, tomorrow we’ll go back up. To hell with what the firemen say. We’ll walk up there.”
“Fine,” she said. “Okay.” She shifted in her robe, shying away from him. He screwed the cap onto his sample toothpaste from the hotel and swung the door open, bathing the dark room in light. “…Goodnight, Tad,” he heard her say as he shut the door behind him.
As he climbed into bed, he looked over at Jamie, who appeared to be asleep, her wavy blonde hair like a halo around her face, little hands in fists around the top of the blankets. She looked just like her mother, he thought. “Daddy,” she whimpered suddenly.
“Yes, sweetheart?” He mumbled.
“Is everything going to be okay?” She implored. Her eyes were wide open now, like she expected him, and only him, to know the answer unequivocally.
“Of course, Jamie,” he struggled to say.

And then it was morning.
Tad woke as he had for many months, thinking, will I leave today? But then he looked around, realized where he was, remembered what had happened, and he knew it wouldn’t be.

Jamie and Lenora were already awake. “We’re going to drive down to the corner where we can see the hills,” she said. Tad mumbled something, and, defeated, fell back asleep.
“Daddy!” Jamie shrieked, jostling him. “Daddy, you said it was gonna be okay! You said!”
Tad sat up quickly, rubbing his eyes. Jamie, her face red and tear-streaked, sat at the end of the bed. “Jamie, calm down –” Lenora started to say. “Tad, we went down to go see what was going on, and we could see from the corner. The hills are still covered in smoke… the fireman we saw said things didn’t look good… he said that most of the houses on Bristol are… completely decimated.” She sat down on the bed too.
Jamie ignored her. “You lied to me, Daddy! You lied!” She yelled. Her piercing voice hurt Tad’s ears, and he didn’t know what to do, or what to say. He didn’t have the answer.
“Jamie, I –”
“You told me our house was okay! You promised me!”
“You promised her?” Lenora repeated. “Tad, you… how could you?” She stood up and walked slowly towards the bathroom, looking back at him with what looked like disgust. Tad put his head in his hands, trying to block out Jamie’s screaming. She was really throwing a tantrum now, pulling her hair and stomping the ground, tugging at Tad’s arm.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” He kept muttering. “I didn’t know.” But it was almost as if he wasn’t even there, as if he was a completely separate unit from his wife and daughter, a ghostly skeleton of some ideal, father, and husband, that didn’t actually exist. He was stuck in some mold that he had to squeeze to fit into, squeeze so his neck ached and his muscles burned. Lenora was pushing him, and Jamie was pulling him, when all he wanted was to escape from it for good, or break it entirely.

Slowly, Jamie tired of her tantrum, and soon she was merely whimpering, her face in her pillows. Lenora was still in the bathroom, and Tad had to go to the bathroom, so he knocked on the door. “Lenora,” he said. “I need to get in there.”
“…Door’s unlocked,” she replied, her voice muffled. He opened the door to find her sitting on the closed toilet seat, staring at the wall. “Tad, I can’t believe you promised –”
“Listen, I don’t want to hear about it,” he retorted.
“No,” Lenora said emphatically. “No, you don’t ever want to hear about anything that might cause you any kind of disservice, or think about anything that might not be absolutely perfect and easy for you. You don’t make promises to a little girl, our daughter, and then let her down. You can’t do that.”
“I didn’t know what to say!” He cried.
“You say, ‘I don’t know.’ You say, ‘it will be okay, as long as we have each other.’ If that’s even true. You haven’t exactly been doing much to help out.”
“Don’t call me selfish, I spend nine hours a day –”
Lenora pushed him in the chest firmly, and said in a strange voice he’d never heard before: “You think I don’t know.”
“D-don’t know?”
“You abhor us. You’re going to leave us. You just want your happy little bachelor life. And you’re going to get it. And you’re going to be so alone.”
“Lenora, shut up!” He yelled. “Stop it!”
“Admit it,” she whispered, still in that strange, vindictive tone. “You’re going to leave us.”
“H-how do you know?”
“Every time I do the laundry, there’s one less shirt. I’ve been finding things missing from the bathroom cabinet… I’ve known for ages.”
“Then – then – why didn’t you do anything about it?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Maybe some stupid little part of me thought, oh, he’ll come to his senses, oh, he really loves me… well I was wrong, wasn’t I.” Tad was speechless.” But guess what? We don’t need you.”

And Tad left the hotel in yesterday’s suit, his wife and only daughter staring at him defiantly, hard.

#
Policemen drove the residents of the hills up to the sites of their houses a week later. The only thing that had been untouched was the water well, the words “East Bay Water Reservoir” still intact. The house was destroyed, and all that was left was black dirt. Tad got on his hands and knees, as if he were a common trash-diver, and found scraps of metal, from pans, from pots, from washers. He found a box, badly charred, in the ground, and when he opened it, something round and silver gleamed. It was his wedding ring. He wiped it on his shirt and found that it was in perfect condition, and he placed it in his pocket. It lay there in homage to what he had lost – to what he had given up.